COPYRIGHT � JANUARY 14, 1996 All rights reserved.
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THE REVERIE----------
She is black, dark brown, dark reddish brown---so many
delicious shades. Her skin looks like the richest of soils and I
wonder, "Is she Mother Earth?" She moves gracefully with
strength and purpose in her steps, unaware of her awesome
beauty. She turns and looks me in the eye and then suddenly
smiles so radiantly I almost lose my breath. How I love her
eyes and her mouth, filled with kindness and gentleness----
from which I never need fear hurt or unkindness. She
laughs and it sounds like music. We touch and my heart
soars. We embrace and I put my lips on her delicious skin.
As the Sun shines on her clean, soft and oiled skin I'm
fascinated by the tiny tints of red, orange, yellow and all the
browns that twinkle up at me. She is sooooo soft and firm,
so full of life! We look into each others eyes, hers sparkling-
---we look long and deep---and then a cloud of uncertainty,
self-doubt, personal fears, and haunting memories moves
across her face and the lovely pools of her eyes are troubled.
I kiss her passionately and hold her ever so close, wishing I
could pull right into my heart and soul. I look again and the
cloud has passed and her face is radiant. We two as one set
out together to face and deal with our world. She lives and
is loved in the deepest depths of my soul and my mind is
filled with wonderful memories of her and us---and my
heart rejoices.
Song of Solomon
1:1* � The song of songs, which is Solomon's.
[ The Black Shulamite to her friends]
2. He should kiss me with the kisses of his mouth;
[King Solomon]
For your lovemaking is better than wine.
Your ointments smell sweetly;
Your name is an ointment poured forth:
Therefore do the virgins love you.
[The Shulamite to Solomon]
4. Draw me [to you],
[Her friends, the Daughters of Jerusalem ]
--we will run after you!
[The Shulamite to her friends]
The king has brought me into his chambers*---
[Solomon's concubines/wives to Solomon]
-We will be glad and rejoice in you,
We will remember* your* lovemaking more than wine.
[ The Shulamite to Solomon]
They love you uprightly.*
5 I am black [as the raven*] , but comely, daughters of
Jerusalem,
As the tents of Kedar,
As the curtains of Solomon.
6* Look not upon me, because I am black [as the raven*];
Because the sun has looked upon me.
My mother's children were angry with me:
They made me keeper of the vineyards;
Mine own vineyard have I not kept.
7* � Tell me, you whom my soul loves,
Where you feed [your flock],
Where you make it to rest at noon;
For why should I be as one veiled
Beside the flocks of your companions?
[ Solomon,the shepherd lover ]
8* If you know not, you fairest among women,
Go out your way by the footsteps of the flock,
And feed your kids* beside the shepherds' booths.
[The Shulamite]
12* � While the king is at* his table,
My spikenard sends forth its fragrance.
13* A bundle of myrrh is my beloved unto me;
He* shall pass the night between my breasts.
14 My beloved is unto me a cluster of henna-flowers
In the vineyards of Engedi.
[ Solomon]
15* Behold, you are fair, my loving friend;
Behold, you are fair: your* eyes are [as] doves.
[The Shulamite ]
16* Behold, you are fair, my beloved, yea, pleasant;
[Solomon]
2:2* As the lily among thorns,
So is my loving friend among the daughters.
[The Shulamite ]
3* � As the apple-tree among the trees of the wood,
So is my beloved among the sons:
In his shadow* have I [ecstatic] rapture* and sit down;
And his fruit is sweet to my taste.
[The Shulamite to her friends, the Daughters
of Jerusalem]
4* He has brought me to the banqueting house*,
And his banner over me is [affectionate] love*.
5* Sustain me with raisin-cakes,
Refresh me with apples;
For I am weak* from [affectionate] love*.
6 His left hand is under my head,
And his right hand embraces me.
7* I charge you, daughters of Jerusalem,
By the gazelles, or by the hinds of the field,
That you stir not up, nor awake [romantic] love*,
Till it* please.
Please let me share with you my letter to my friend.
Dear and Precious Friend,
Please let me share some thoughts with you that have been
in my head all night and now here at 5 am in the morning I
finally have to put them on paper, just to have some peace.
I hope they will be of some use to you.
First and most obviously is your great and wonderful
beauty. But you seem to be so hurt and wounded, I guess by
your divorce and what has become of your life, that I am
sure that either you don�t feel very beautiful -- or -- you
have found that your great beauty does not guarantee you a
happy and fulfilled life. You probably are even tired of all
the male action that your beauty draws to you. You
probably even wish, sometimes, that you weren�t so
beautiful.
But beyond your wonderful beauty, I see a sweetness and a
gentleness. By �sweetness� I mean a sensitivity, a
goodness, a gentleness and a kindness that most people
would like to see in their mothers, their sweethearts, in the
mothers of their children and finally in their dearly beloved
daughters. I am truly blessed because I do have three black
daughters (17, 21, 23) and they do have a sweet
lovingkindness about them that fills my heart with joy,
thankfulness and pride. The problem is that a woman needs
cherishing to maintain that sweet lovingkindness, and you
are hurt, wounded and vulnerable from all that you have
endured. I believe that if you don�t surround yourself with
people who will cherish and encourage you, you may be
overcome with bitterness and grief -- and become hard and
bitter, ruining your inner and outer beauty.
But what about your beauty? Is it a liability or an asset for
you? Right now your beauty might seem meaningless or at
least more trouble than good. Either way, you have it. It
may be temporary, but if the Lord wills, you might live with
your beauty for many years to come. I hope you will use it
for good. You see, in our shallow and superficial world,
beauty is
POWER!!!
Yes, power! I�ll tell you more about Pat B. later, but she is
an example how a woman can use the POWER of her
beauty for good. She became a teacher and when her
students see her they are really impressed by her lovely
beauty and radiant smile. That�s power! Immediately they
WANT to like her and they WANT her to like them so they
behave in such a way as to please her. Even when they get
crazy and restless, they still WANT her to like them so they
finally come around. Her beautiful smile and radiant
personality feed their hungry loved starved souls and they
feel good just being around her. For the ones with no love,
her love for them gives them the will to live, to work and to
do well in school. Pat becomes the wind under their sails.
Pat hopes that eventually their pleasant experience of being
loved and being loved by PAT, will addict them to Love so
they can�t and wont want to live without it --- and
hopefully even become loving people themselves.
You have this great beauty too. You can use it to build
people, encourage people and help people if you package
your beauty in sweet loving kindness. Right now your
children love and adore their beautiful and sweet mother.
Your smile can be their sunshine, your laughter their music,
your eyes their inspiration. Yes, and I raised three, that
smile often has to become a frown when they disobey or do
things that will hurt themselves. Like the Bible says, �Those
whom the Lord Loves, the Lord disciplines�, so you love for
them has to include discipline because an undisciplined child
is a child doomed to disaster and grief in life. Whether it be
the chop sticks I used to flick my girls legs or the things
(privileges, clothing, doors, furniture etc.) I took away from
them because of their disobediene, they knew that we loved
them and as soon as the discipline was done, we went on
loving and laughing with them. We always explained to
them whey their disobedience was bad for them and why we
had to discipline them.
The power of your beauty can be used to get your friends to
listen to you and respect your say or opinion. They�ll hear
you out because they like you and your beauty. That
assumes that their is a beauty to the way you talk as well as
the way you look. Cursing, swearing and obscenities make
even the most beautiful woman look bad. No one in their
mind wants to be around a beautiful woman who has a bad
mouth, except for money or sex and and soon as they get
what theywant, they are gone and she is alone with her ugly
mouth.
The power of your beauty on your man can make or break
him. If he is a fool and doesn�t appreciate your sweet
beauty or abuses it and you, then he has indeed played the
fool and there is no hope for him except for God. Until he
lets Jesus save him, he�s no good to you or to God. If he is a
wise man, he knows he has a treasure in your beauty,
especially if it is the beauty of face and form coupled with
the beauty of a kind mouth and heart. Such beauty moves
him to desire you, moves him to want to be with you. Such
beauty moves him to be thankful for you, to appreciate and
treasure you. He becomes addicted to your smile and your
kind and harmless talk. He longs for your smile and
laughter. When he is down or beat by the day or life in
general, you can speak encouragement to him, comfort him
in his hurt, give him your wamth and soft loving to help him
recover from the cold and hard world outside that he has to
deal with. Your warm loving beauty in form and word can
make an ordinary man a great man, can make a small man
a big man, can make a weak man a strong man, can make a
wounded and hurting man a healed and recovering man.
Yes you have needs too. You need to be loved and cherished
too. But your love can be powerful, inspiring and uplifting
even when you feel weak and unloved. If you have come to
Jesus, believed and accepted His great unconditional Love
for you, given your whole life to Him and asked Him to
come inside of you and make you His child, His Love in you
can Love others even if they nail you to a cross. But your
need for Love is why Jesus commanded husbands to have
and show 1 Corinthians 13 loving kindness and
compassionate cherishing for their wives. Of course they
can�t do that until they have believed in and accepted Jesus
as the One who saves them from the evil in their lives and
as the One who gives them a whole new life as they yield to
Him living and loving in and through them. That kind of
husband can ever be learning how to better love and cherish
his precious wife and children.
I have been �abandoned� by my two black wives, the second
the mother of my wonderful daughters. I know the grief of
losing the ones I love, and to realize that I was partly to
blame for them leaving, and to see how they suffered and
how my children suffered because of the divorce. If the
good Lord hadn�t got me into a good divorce/grief recovery
support group, I would have had a miserable life. But he
used the divorce/grief recovery support group to put me
back on His track of Life, Compassionate Cherishing, Light
and Truth. The wounds of divorce are to great and too
deep to handle by yourself. For sure you need His help, and
the help He can give you through His children in the world.
I know another black world class lady like yourself. To me
she is awesome in her wonderful femininity, her beauty, her
wisdom, her wonderful humor and her love for people. She
was abused and abandonned by her husband, leaving her to
survive on her own with three children. I hope you will feel
led to ask her for her advice on how you can survive and get
on with the rest of your life and the life of your children.
She is blunt, direct and up front with a smile lurking behind
every serious look and word. I think you will love her like I
do. I believe she can be a source of great encouragement to
you. Her name is Pat B. I hope you will ask her if the two of
you could get together for a talk over coffee, tea or pepsi, so
Pat could tell you her story and give you advice that will
show you how you can turn your life around to become
something better than what you have today.
Iris A., another wonderful and lovely black lady, is a
struggling single mother and teacher like Pat, who is a wise
loving and caring person who could give you great advice
on how to make it as a struggling single mom. You can
reach her at the same address.
I hope and pray you don�t surround yourself with people
who are given to selfishness, pleasure and self-indulgence
because they will only pull you down and harden you. Their
selfishness will disappoint you and offend you. Their love
of selfish pleasure will seem hollow, unfulfilling and
diappoint-ing, especially if it is at your expense (like guys
using you for sex). You will find that in their self-indulgence
you often get used, or abused and they really aren�t there
for you, they�re not committed to you and your life, and you
can�t rely on them or even trust them.
I hope you will surround yourself with people committed to
Love, Truth, Light and Life, like Pat and Iris. I hope you will
let Jesus have the broken pieces of your life, giving your
whole life to Him to resurrect and make new. I hope you
will surround yourself with people who Love Him and
through whom He can compassionately cherish you.
As another poet wrote, and white me quotes:
It is with the sincere love of Our Creator that I present this
> Tribute to every Black woman across the countries of the
globe.
>
>
> Who is stronger than the mighty mountains
>
> More gentle than flowers that grow
>
> Who is sweeter, sweeter than honey
>
> And far more beautiful than the rose
>
> Who is more precious than the diamond
>
> More to be desired than gold
>
> All that the Black man should desire,
>
> All that the Black man could ever need
>
> The Black women, God's perfect gift to me...
>
>
>
> ignore1996,Richard Dickerson / SoulBeat
Communications
AND THEN THERE WAS THE REST OF THE STORY----
She is black, dark brown, dark reddish brown---so many
delicious shades. Her skin looks like the richest of soils and I
wonder, "Is she Mother Earth?" She moves gracefully with
strength and purpose in her steps, unaware of her awesome
beauty. I call out her precious name, almost to make sure
she's real and not a dream. She turns and looks me in the
eye and then suddenly smiles so radiantly I almost lose my
breath. It seems as if she glows! I drink her in as she flows
towards me with her arms open wide. The face I see is
Love.
How I love her eyes and her mouth, filled with
kindness and gentleness----from which I never need fear
hurt or unkindness. She laughs and it sounds like music. We
touch and my heart soars. We embrace and I put my lips on
her delicious skin. She is so delicious it is hard to keep my
mouth off of her. As the Sun shines on her clean, soft and
oiled skin I'm fascinated by the tiny tints of red, orange,
yellow and all the browns that twinkle up at me. She is
sooooo soft and firm, so full of life!
We look into each others' eyes, hers sparkling-
---we look long and deep and our souls touch---and then
suddenly it seems a cloud of uncertainty, self-doubt,
personal fears, or haunting memories moves across her face
and the lovely pools of her eyes are troubled. I kiss her
passionately and hold her ever so close, wishing I
could pull right into my heart and soul and bathe her in my
love, wanting to make it all right for her. Hesitantly I look
again hoping her radiance has returned and Yes! the
cloud has passed and her face is radiant again. What I see
in her face fills my heart. All is well. We two as one set
out together to face and deal with our world.
She lives and is loved in the deepest depths of my soul
and my mind is filled with wonderful memories of her and
us---and my Scotch-Irish-Welsh heart rejoices over my dark
Queen.
But then the memory comes slaps me back to the
reality that my beloved, wonderful, awesome, brilliant and
delicious Lynn is dead; my sweet, gentle, peaceful, and
darling little Beverly is gone; my radiant, super-mom,
wonder career woman, and precious Diane has closed the
door and locked me out; and my affectionate, generous,
kind, sweet, empoverished and three-kids-weary Paula
can't make up her mind about us. My dark Queens are
scattered and distant. My heart aches, but, as with
Camelot, there was a time of sweet loving that gave me the
priceless wealth of those wonderful memories. But the
memories don't glow, they aren't soft and warm, I can't
hold them, the voices are silent and their touch is gone.........
.....and I am sooooooooo alone without my dark Queens.
THE SONG OF SOLOMON
>>The Shulamite
"He should kiss me with the kisses of his mouth----
for your loving is better than wine! . . . .
I am BLACK [AS A RAVEN], but lovely . . .
because the sun has looked upon me. . . ."
>>Solomon
Behold, you are fair, my beloved companion!
Behold, you are fair!
You have dove's eyes.
>>The Shulamite
Behold, you are handsome, my beloved!
Yes, pleasant! . . . .
His left hand is under my head,
And his right hand embraces me. . . .
>>Solomon
How fair is your loving,
My sister, my spouse!
How much better than wine is your loving,
And the fragrance of your perfumes
Than all spices!
Your lips, O my spouse,
Drip as the honeycomb;
Honey and milk are under your tongue;
And the fragrance of your garments
Is like the fragrance of Lebanon.
A garden* enclosed
Is my sister, my spouse, . . . .
>>The Shulamite
My beloved should come to his garden*
And eat its pleasant fruits.
>>Solomon
I have come to my garden*,
my sister, my spouse . . .
>> The Shulamite
My beloved is WHITE AND RUDDY,
Chief among ten thousand.
His head is like the fines gold;
His locks wavy,
And BLACK AS A RAVEN. . . .
>>Solomon
How fair and how pleasant you are,
O love, with your delights!
This stature of yours is like a palm tree
And your breasts like its clusters.
I said 'I will go up to the palm tree,
I will take hold of its branches.'
Your breasts should be like clusters of the vine,
The fragrance of your breath like apples,
And the roof of your mouth like the best wine.
>>The Shulamite
I am my beloved's
And his desire is toward me.
Come, my beloved,
We should get up early to the vineyards;
There I will give you my loving. . . .
His left hand is under my head,
And his right hand embraces me. . .
[Beloved], set me as a seal upon your heart,
As a seal upon your arm;
For love is as strong as death, . . . .
Many waters cannot quench love,
Nor can the floods drown it.
If a man would give for love
All the wealth of his house,
It would be utterly despised. . . .
I am a wall,
And my breasts like towers;
Then I became in his eyes
As one who found peace. . . " Song of Solomon
"Your fountain should be blessed, and rejoice with the wife
of your youth. As a loving deer and a graceful doe, her
breasts should satisfy you at all times; and always be
intoxicated-orgasmic-enraptured with her loving. Proverbs
5:18,19
"Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a
merry heart; For God has already accepted your works. Let
your garments always be white, and let your head lack no
oil. All the days of your vain life which He has given you
under the sun live joyfully with the wife whom you love, all
your days of vanity; for that is your portion in life, and in
the labor which you perform under the sun." Ecclesiastes
9:7,8,9
"Wives, [if you don't want to go along with something your
husbands ask, and going along with them would not be
morally wrong or spiritually an error, then deny yourselves
and] submit [yourselves] to your own husbands, as [you
often deny yourselves to submit yourselves] to the
Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as also Christ
is head of the church . . . Husbands, compassionately cherish
your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave
Himself for it . . . each one of you in particular should so
compassionately cherish his own wife as h imself, and let
the wife see that she respects her husband."Ephesians 5:22-
33
